Iribarren, the “Crazy Basque” who built a monument in Mexico to Scotsman Fleming (video)

The Mexican daily La Vanguardia on Saturday published an extensive and well-researched report by Jesús Peña dedicated to a Basque who, as we said in the title, built a monument to a Scotsman in northern Mexico.

Figure. In his younger days Feliciano, with his strong character, was already standing out it what he would become: a successful businessman.

Feliciano Iribarren Arrese was born in the final years of the 19th century in the Navarrese town of Abaurrea Baja. At 20, in 1916, he and some of his brothers decided, like so many Basques of the period, to emigrate to the New World searching for fortune and a better life.

A few years later, with even more saved up, they were able to buy ranches to raise sheep. One of the ranches, the one that belonged to our protagonist, was named after his place of origin: “Pirineos (Pyrenees)”

Up to now, this story has been just another one of those thousands who “did the Americas” reasonably successfully. What makes the case of this Basque so special, though, is that there in northern Mexico, at the beginning of the 1960s, he decided to pay homage to a Scotsman who changed the course of history; a man who is a member of that group that’s done so much and yet to whom we don’t pay enough respect.

Feliciano Iribarren built a sculpture to honor Alexander Fleming, the Scottish scientist who discovered antibiotics and to whom so many millions of people owe their lives and their wellbeing.

We don’t remember much about this extraordinary man. His discovery has become part of our everyday lives and even become “transparent,” to the point that its misuse might be causing this immense gift from science might have its days numbered.

But it’s harder to forget when we reach kilometer 78+180 on Highway 57. In this stretch of road between Monclova and Sabinas, right at the point where the Los Pirineos Ranch is, in the municipality of Progreso, there is a monument to Alexander Fleming, which was ordered built by Feliciano Iribarren. He did understand the magnitude of Fleming’s discovery of penicillin.

We’ll leave you with the article in the Vanguardia, as well as try to “make amends” for an article by Otto Schober published in 2012 in the Zócalo Saltillo which slipped through the cracks.